Chinese New Year 2010

Every year, it is the same. I will visit you and you will visit me.

So this year, we did something a little different. We still visited - but we went a lot further than normal. We went to visit the Soup family at Sungei Siput - Woh Foong in Cantonese (or Snails River if you translate that literally). And I call them the Soup family because the name Thong in Cantonese means soup!.

Woke up no earlier than usual and set off North towards Ipoh. Took us 2 1/2 hours to get to Woh Foong. Oi Chan was in. Oi Yin, the younger soup sister was in Cameron Highlands doing a bit of bird watching in the jungles. She called back and said she could make it back for lunch. So we waited.

Lunch was another 45 minutes drive to a place called Sauk (turn off from the highway to Kuala Kangsar, in the direction of Lenggong). The place is supposedly famous for seafood (mainly freshwater fish and prawns). As you turn off into Sauk new village, you will see a restaurant located at the corner named the NEW Lau Kai. That is NOT the original. Turn left and go another 20m and you will come to the original - Lau Kai Restaurant.

We started off with a fish paste prepared in 2 styles. Then the soup sisters ordered a prawn in claypot that came with a spicy tasty soup. The soup is NOT made of coconut extract (santan). Instead, fresh milk was used, which made it light and tasty. We also had fish belly in spicy sauce. We noticed the other tables had steamed fish (the whole fish), but there was only 5 of us and Oi Chan reckons we cannot finish a whole fish and eat other dishes at the same time.

She then ordered a claypot farm chicken - actually that's what the Cantonese name translates as (teen kai). It is really FROG (not toad).Must be because it taste like chicken.

And there was also free range fried chicken, a green veg dish to make sure we get enough fibre and a cuttle fish dish in satay sauce. That was the only dish I did not photographed.

And after all that, what else can we say except BUUUUURRRRRRPPPPPP!!!

Next year, maybe we will plan for a trip to the South - Malacca?? Batu Pahat?? Muar?? Kluang?? Any offers?

Shanghai for more than 2 weeks!!

This January trip to Shanghai had essentailly 2 objectives

- get trained as a trainer for one of our support products (RA) and

- to deliver a training on another product because the original trainer could not be re-scheduled.

Because of the train the trainer sessions, I arrived on a Thursday to help the trainer get the class and labs setup. In the end, since most of the setup was network related, there was not much I could help with as only 1 of 2 trainers from Colorado turned up. The other one had to abort at the last minute due to burst water pipes in his house (extreme cold winters does that). Rick had only one hardisk with all the necessary labs installed, so I couldn't help him.

In any case, the training went well, despite many gremlins showing up in the lab. DHCP addresses were supposed to be leased for 7 days, but somehow in the lab, the moment you disconnect, you get a new IP address. Perplexing and challenging!!

There was a GC class running in the next room and both Rick and I were invited to their graduation dinner. Most of those students in the GC class were going to be my students during my last week in Shanghai!

During the first weekend, Mao (aka referred to as Chairman Mao for those who know him) took me to the highest bottle opener in the world - the Shanghai World Financial center (SWFC). You had to pay RMB150 per person to go all the way to the 100th floor to view Pudong and it's surroundings. Unfortunately for us, the day was foggy and you really don't get a good view. In fact, Shanghai seems to be shrouded in perpetual fog during the days I was there. I was the 1,984,201 visitor up to the 100th floor. For sure, SWFC is really high. Even the JinMao building and the Oriental Pearl Tower nearby is looked down on - literally. The picture above is what you can expect if the day was clear! One thing I noticed was that due to the expected high number of foreign tourists who goes up the SWFC, most of the girls manning the lifts and customer areas were young and pleasant on the eyes.

The training i delivered was also challenging as many of the instruments are badly maintained. Damn!!! But I managed to deliver what was required and had the class graduation dinner nearby.

As usual, I get to renew my friendship with many people in the factory. There was Lily, who is the GC trainer, Helen, our training admin in Shanghai and of course my Niang.

I am coming again in March!!

Shanghaied in Jan 2010

It's winter.... and not really a good time to be travelling in the Northern hemisphere! Just had about 2 weeks in London and Paris with relatively mild weather (except for 2 days of snow). So when I was monitoring the weather in Shanghai before my travels, i was getting a little bit concerned as the average temperatures was a few degrees below what we had experienced in Europe. On the morning that I landed n Pudong, it was -5 deg C!! Bloody negative 5 degrees C!! Oh oh... Looks like I am in for a cold stay.

(I was staying at the Holiday Inn Express, JinQiao - pretty economical)

But it sure looks like wherever I travel, I bring the sun with me. When I was in Shanghai a few months ago, the whole week I was here, the weather was warmer than expected. When I left, it turned cold again. Same thing in London and Paris. Heh heh heh. So today, Saturday, I was going around Shanghai with just a short sleeved tee, a sweater over that and a jacket just in case.

I promised EC to check out Longchamps prices to see if it is worthwhile to buy from Shanghai.

(The station at Jufeng Road)

So I took the metro (Shanghai rail transit) from Jufeng Road station (line no.6) to East Nanjing Road station (line no.2). Surfing the net, it shows that there is an outlet for Longchamps at West Nanjing Road. I forgot to check the address - it was at 1618, West Nanjing Road!!

So in my leisurely walk from East Nanjing Road to 1618, West Nanjing Road, I almost cramped up my legs!

(a new shop opening on Nanjing Zhong Lu)

Which idiot in Shanghai go and restart the numbers when you cross from East Nanjing Road to Central Nanjing Road to West Nanjing Road?

(A L'Oreal promotion booth outside one of the bigger shopping complexes)

I did not realize this until I crossed the street from Central Nanjing road to West Nanjing Road and saw that the addresses restarted from 2!! Shit!! That walk was longer than our walk from Crowne Plaza in Republique place to Notre Dame in Paris. And that was a pretty long walk too.

The walk was educational to some extent as I normally associated only Central Nanjing Road (Nanjing Zhong Lu) as the shopping area.

(There is a Madame Tussaud's near the beginning of West Nanjing Road!)

That's sort of like Orchard Road on a smaller length.

(Many trees are fully wrapped in gold foil!!?? Why??)

I did not realize that Nanjing Road stretched so far. I have travelled and visited places on West Nanjing Road many times without realizing where I was previously.

The whole stretch of Nanjing Road from East to West is much longer than Oxford Street in London and

(This Marks & Spencer outlet is bigger than any M&S in Malaysia)

have almost all the branded names setup along the way. If you want an idea how affluent the Chinese have become in general and Shanghainese in particular, you can more or less tell from the kind of showrooms that you can see. For example, I saw this Ferrari/ Maserati showroom across from the Porche and Mercedes showroom. This is on the ground floor of the J W Marriot hotel.

You have LV and Prada in one of the up market malls.

(and you do get garish decoration - for Xmas??)

And when I reached my destination - Shanghai Jiuguang Dept Store - it was like deja vu!! The layout was very similar to that of Galleries LaFayette in Paris where we bought a bunch of LongChamps. EC even remembers that there was a Tiffany & Co at the entrance. Trust that girl to know where all the expen$ive places are. Despite a 30% discount, the prices are still higher than in Paris. As the sales lady told me - imported mah..

Just outside, stalls have been setup to sell Chinese New Year delicacies.

(Seems like the shopping mall has a similarly idea as mine. First dress up the Xmas tree for Christmas, then redecorate it for Chinese New Year)!!

I am still wondering if this is a waxed pig or a waxed dog?? Looks about the same size.

Luckily next to the LongChamps store was the JingAn Temple Station (line no.2) so I did not have to retrace my steps to the next Metro station.

On the way back to the hotel, I saw this peddler selling a local vegetable/meat burger. I wasn't hungry, so I did not try this. But his customers look like they like it quite a bit.

Oh!! Anyone hasn't seen the limited edition LongChamp Le Pileage?? It has the Eiffel Tower on the side!!

A basin of vegetables

Poon Choi - literally a basin of vegetables. This is a dish that is peculiar to the Hakkas ( a dialect group of the Chinese).

(Eagerly waiting for the dish to be served)

I have heard about this dish for such a long time but never did get to eat it - until last night.

I was always under the impression that everything was cooked together.

(The dish when served - before we attacked it)

Last night's experience showed me that I was wrong.

(Photos first before we start)

Having eaten the poon choi last night, i think i can make a reasonable effort to duplicating something similar for the coming Chinese new Year.

(about half way through)

The dish we got yesterday was essentially layer after layers of different meat piled one layer on top of the other.

(the last layer)

By the time we got to the bottom layer, it was kind of saltish and oily (all the oils oozing out from the fatty parts of the meat.

We had our poon choi at Restaurant LYJ (in Chinese, it's Lei Hoong Kei) in Sungai Buloh New Village. It cost RM480 per dish and you really really really should go with at least 10 people or you may not be able to finish the dish.

Burp!!

London and Paris - a new perspective

Had a wonderful 11 days in London and Paris and immensely enjoyed it. More so since Elaine C also joined my family and I in our holidays. Having her along meant a slight change in the normal things we did. In all our travels, all our schedule was set by me with little or no input from the wife. My son would only have a few places to go to, like London Dungeon. With Elaine, we also put in a few days of shopping in London and Paris as there was the Christmas sales, the Boxing Day sales and end of year sales. We literally walked till we almost dropped.

My sister has a 2 room house in Walthamstow and all four of us (wife, son, Elaine and I) took up one room in front. this room has the best view as it overlooks the forest reserve and in the wee hours of the morning, you can see the foxes wandering around. Some of the convenience that we are used to had to have some adjustments. For example, there is only one bathroom and one toilet. So bath time was one long waiting session.

For friends and friend of friends, you would probably have seen my photo narrative on facebook, so I am not going to duplicate that here.

It has been a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thanks for the company Elaine. I hope you enjoyed the holiday as much as we did.